Marine Corps veteran Calvin Curtis holds a book about Montford Point at Camp Lejeune where he trained with other African Americans during World War II. Today, Curtis will receive a replica of the Congressional Gold Medal for his service.

Photo By Courtesy photo

Calvin Curtis, in Marine uniform during the war, today will receive the Congressional Gold Medal. “It was a long time coming,” says Curtis.

Photo By Courtesy photo

Calvin Curtis, second row, second from the right in his Marine Corps unit. His son’s efforts led to today’s ceremony.

Photo By Express-News file photo

Calvin T. Curtis holds a photo of himself taken wile he was a Marine on May 17, 2000.

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Ceremony for Calvin Curtis

When: Today at 11 a.m.

Where: 3837 Binz-Engleman Road on Fort Sam Houston

Details: Open to the public. To get on post, show a valid driver’s license and proof of insurance or a military ID card. Enter through the Binz-Engleman gate as if going to San Antonio Military Medical Center, and then go the Navy Operations Support Center.

Todd Curtis was watching the TV show “NCIS” at his home in Boston six weeks ago when it dawned on him that one story line was strikingly familiar: It had to do with the Montford Point Marines — the nation's first black Marines, which had included his father.

At the end of the show, these words appeared: “Dedicated to the Montford Point Marines. Honored with the Congressional Gold Medal. June 27, 2012.”

Curtis sat stunned. It was the first he had heard of his father's World War II comrades receiving the highest civilian honor given by Congress. He went online and discovered that, indeed, more than 400 men who had gone to the same segregated boot camp, called Montford Point, had attended a ceremony last summer in Washington, D.C.

Curtis immediately set out to ensure that his father, Calvin Curtis of San Antonio, would be honored, too.

His efforts will pay off today when the elder Curtis, 87, will stand before his three sons and other relatives and friends in a ceremony at Fort Sam Houston as he receives a replica of the medal, just as the other Montford Point Marines did. Marine Lt. Col. Bruce Sotire of the 4th Reconnaissance Battalion will present the award, and the battalion color guard will present the flags, said Marine Sgt. Maj. Gary G. Tolar.

“It was a long time coming,” the elder Curtis says.

He did not find out about the Washington ceremony because he was not a member of the Montford Point Marine Association, a veterans group that distributed word about the award. (The actual medal, presented to the Montford Point Marines as a whole, is headed for display at the Smithsonian.)

The retired mail carrier will accept the award with thoughts of his twin brother, Clarence, also a Montford Point Marine, who died in 2001. Three other siblings served in the military during World War II.

They grew up on a farm in South Texas, outside Charlotte, and in 1943, the 18-year-old Curtis twins were assigned to the Marines. The Marine Corps was the last military branch to accept blacks after President Roosevelt banned race-based exclusion from the military.

“We didn't know we were making history,” Curtis says.

He was among some 20,000 black Marines who trained at Montford Point, a segregated and, according to the association, a substandard boot camp at Camp Lejeune, N.C. It operated from 1942 to 1949, when it was shut down and training was integrated.

Pfc. Curtis was sent to Hawaii, where he handled ammunition in an all-black unit, working under the supervision of white officers.

While some black Marines did see combat — 13 were killed in World War II in the Pacific — they often were stuck with menial tasks. Many carried ammunition to the front lines to white troops and carried back the dead.

“They had to fight for the right to fight,” says James Averhart Jr., national president of the Montford Point Marine Association. “They fought two wars: They fought one in their country and they fought one overseas.”

The Montford Point Marines, he says, “were pioneers who paved the way for thousands of others to do what we're doing today in the Marine Corps.”

Curtis' son Todd says he knew about the Army Air Forces' Tuskegee Airmen from movies and magazines, but didn't realize the significance of his father's role.

“Of course, growing up, we knew he was in the Marines,” says Todd Curtis, 53, an aviation safety analyst.

“Part of it was the fact that it was so difficult for that group of Marines to get recognition in the public,” the younger Curtis says. “The story of the Montford Point Marines has taken a bit longer to come to public consciousness.”

Starting with the House's 422-0 vote in October 2011 to bestow the Congressional Gold Medal, the men who integrated the Marines are finally getting that recognition.

For Todd Curtis, it was important to make sure that his dad did not miss out.

“This is a public acknowledgement of what we knew to be his sacrifice and service over the years,” he says. “It makes us all proud.”

After his discharge as a corporal in 1946, Curtis worked as a mail carrier for 35 years. A widower after 55 years of marriage, he still lives in the East Side house he bought in 1954.

In addition to working with the Marines to arrange the ceremony, Todd Curtis notified Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, Sen.-elect Ted Cruz and Rep. Lamar Smith. So far, only Smith (R-San Antonio) has responded.

In a letter dated Dec. 4, Smith applauded Curtis' service as a war veteran.

“You and your fellow Montford Point Marines shouldered an added challenge in being the first African-American Marines to serve the country, a pioneering step leading the way to an eventual full integration of the United States Armed Services,” Smith wrote. “The Marines of today are better for your service in days past.”